Figure 1

A Happiness paradox, like a Friendship paradox, could result from skewed degree distributions. (A1) Like the examples above, most social networks are characterized by very skewed degree distributions: a few individuals have very many connections, while most individuals have only few connections. The number of connections are marked within each node. Those with many connections are by definition more likely to be someone’s friend. As a result their higher number of connections can increase the average degree of given friendship neighborhoods throughout the network (marked above each node) leading to a Friendship paradox (red nodes) in which most individuals nodes are less popular than the average of their friends. (A2) When popular individuals are also more likely to be happy, their Happiness becomes more prevalent, raising average happiness levels throughout the friendship circles in the network. A Happiness paradox may result in which most individuals are less happy than their own friends on average. Individuals may cluster based on their Happiness or even the degree to which they experience a Happiness paradox.